Chicago – September 07, 2025
Several thousand demonstrators marched past Trump Tower as the sun began to set in downtown Chicago on Saturday, protesting U.S. President Donald Trump’sthreats to flood the city with immigration agents.
The protest came after fears of increasing deportations chilled a normally raucous Mexican Independence Day celebration, as Trump signaled his intention to ramp up immigration enforcement on social media.
In a social media post depicting himself as a U.S. military officer from the movie “Apocalypse Now,” Trump wrote, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning,” above an image of the president in uniform juxtaposed against flames and Chicago’s skyline.
For many protesters, the threats felt personal.
Tracy Quinonez, 50, said her father, who recently died, came to the U.S. from Guatemala as a refugee. “I’m here for him,” she said. “It’s not criminals being taken off the street. It’s families being ripped apart.”
Quinonez, who like many other protesters was waving the blue stripes and red stars of Chicago’s city flag, told Reuters, “They really picked on the wrong city.”
Protesters also opposed Trump’s threats to deploy National Guard troops to fight crime in Chicago, which would be an extraordinary effort to militarize the country’s third-largest city. On Wednesday, however, Vice President JD Vance said there were “no immediate plans” to send the National Guard to Chicago.
Trump, a Republican, has mobilized troops in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., cities that, like Chicago, are run by Democratic politicians.
